Rating: 
Summary: Superior instruction and method
Review: A friend in Australia sent me the CD's as a gift. And what a gift! The only reason I can't give it 5 stars is because I haven't finished it yet. But 5 stars based on what I've learned so far, in just 2 of the CD's. I was on a trip recently without the CD's and so I bought a 2-tape audio program, which came with a thick workbook, and it can't hold a candle to Michel's work. I'm really excited about finishing the program and continuing into live instruction in my area. And then, of course, getting over to Italy and not freaking out. Till then, this is the one to buy!
Rating: 
Summary: An intensive start to German.
Review: After listening to, and studying with, these 8 discs I feel that Michel Thomas covers a decent amount of ground and in a way that will encourage students to be more confident about learning more vocabulary, and apply it successfully to moderately complicated sentences.
Being presented as a live class situation is helpful, since it is a fair replication of what I am experiencing in my Open University classes, with the advantage, that you can pause the action and go get a cup of coffee and unwind, when the pressure gets too much :-)
This set of discs will get the serious student up and running without too much stress. And there is a lot of online German to supplement the contents. I find Google News in German and Spiegel Online worthwhile. And a German e-mail partner is good to have. Tandem can help with this.
Rating: 
Summary: Verb structure is all very well, but how about the basics?
Review: After purchasing the introductory (2 CD) set, I bought this set through Amazon.com. Thomas introduces the structure of German sentences in the most painless way imaginable-you don't even realize you're learning grammar until he gives you the terminology after you've already learned how it works. Thomas teaches German by leading two students (you are the third) through a series of sentence building exercises. His handling of auxiliary verbs (will, must, can, etc.) makes them not only easy to understand, but useful as well (because using these "handles" allows you to use the infinitive form of whatever other verb is in the sentence).Two (minor) quibbles: 1. Despite Thomas' insistence that you are not to take notes or attempt to memorize, one of the students on the recording (the woman) is clearly writing things down and referring to her notes before she responds, because several times she pronounces "Sie" (pronounced "Zee") as "sigh" and "die" (pronounced "dee") as the English "die," something she wouldn't be doing if she were trying to repeat what she'd heard. This mispronunciation is distracting and appears to frustrate Thomas. 2. Early on in the recordings, there is an audible beep where you are supposed to stop the CD and try to figure out the response to Thomas' sentence formation questions, but these quickly disappear (and without warning), and with Thomas' pauses in his speech it is sometimes difficult to tell when you should stop the CD and attempt to translate what you are hearing. Overall, I found this program very easy to follow. The other two students seemed slow to me-so much so that I felt like yelling at them on occasion-but I wonder now if that was not deliberate, to make me feel as though I was progressing more rapidly than the "rest of the class." Regardless of its minor flaws, however, this is THE set to buy if you know no German and want to get a good start on understanding the language.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Introduction to German
Review: After purchasing the introductory (2 CD) set, I bought this set through Amazon.com. Thomas introduces the structure of German sentences in the most painless way imaginable-you don't even realize you're learning grammar until he gives you the terminology after you've already learned how it works. Thomas teaches German by leading two students (you are the third) through a series of sentence building exercises. His handling of auxiliary verbs (will, must, can, etc.) makes them not only easy to understand, but useful as well (because using these "handles" allows you to use the infinitive form of whatever other verb is in the sentence). Two (minor) quibbles: 1. Despite Thomas' insistence that you are not to take notes or attempt to memorize, one of the students on the recording (the woman) is clearly writing things down and referring to her notes before she responds, because several times she pronounces "Sie" (pronounced "Zee") as "sigh" and "die" (pronounced "dee") as the English "die," something she wouldn't be doing if she were trying to repeat what she'd heard. This mispronunciation is distracting and appears to frustrate Thomas. 2. Early on in the recordings, there is an audible beep where you are supposed to stop the CD and try to figure out the response to Thomas' sentence formation questions, but these quickly disappear (and without warning), and with Thomas' pauses in his speech it is sometimes difficult to tell when you should stop the CD and attempt to translate what you are hearing. Overall, I found this program very easy to follow. The other two students seemed slow to me-so much so that I felt like yelling at them on occasion-but I wonder now if that was not deliberate, to make me feel as though I was progressing more rapidly than the "rest of the class." Regardless of its minor flaws, however, this is THE set to buy if you know no German and want to get a good start on understanding the language.
Rating:
Summary: an outstanding experience
Review: As someone with no natural foreign language talent and at school having bunked out of German, this program is outstanding. I have just completed with with an intensive one to one course and I can honestly say that I gained wider - and more indepth learning - from the 60 usd I spent on Michel Thomas' program than the 2500 usd I spent with Berlitz.
If you want practical - rather than theoretical - language training that gives you the confidence to further explore I cannot rate this product highly enough. The only problem is that there isnt a next stage of learning; if he did produce a next level i would be first in the line to buy.
Rating: 
Summary: Profoundly irritating
Review: Eight profoundly irritating CDs of three way conversations out of left field (the first thing I need to learn in Italian would probably be "where is the hotel?", not "it is not possible for me that way"). Each person on the CD has a different accent, adding to the confusion, and the intermittent beeps (you are instructed to hit the pause button and form an answer every time you hear this beep) is enough to make you want to tear your hair out.
Rating:
Summary: Michel Thomas owns!
Review: First of all, the 2 best learning CD programs are Michel Thomas and Pimsleur. But, for languages that are so similar to English as German is, the Michel Thomas method works better. Also, pimsler is just so sterile compared to Michel Thomas. If you want to learn German, I'd suggest finishing this CD set, THEN picking up grammar books and dictionaries. Once these CDs make German second nature, the gorier details of the language will be less daunting and intimidating. Don't expect this CD set or any singular learning material to give you complete fluency. Learning a language is going to be an investment in time and money.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent teaching method
Review: First the limitations - not nearly enough focus on nouns, informal tense and past tense. The listener will need to supplement with other materials and practice to really learn German. The positives far outweigh these criticisms though. I live in Germany and tried learning German through semi-private language instruction that followed a very typical grammar/vocabulary based approach. I was a total failure because I was so overwhelmed with all that that I never developed the confidence to go out and actually speak to people. Ultimately, that is how you learn a language - getting out and speaking it. So, I had built up a vocabulary of words and some ideas of the grammar rules but couldn't really put together coherent thoughts nor pronounce things correctly. Now, I am just 3 tapes into this course, I have a much more solid basis from which to build on. Thomas' method of instruction just works so much better for me then the typical workbook, drills and heavy verb conjugation. I think it is worth the money, but realize you will need additional materials to become fluent.
Rating: 
Summary: not bad, but certainly not great
Review: I borrowed this from my local library and am extremely happy that I did not pay for it. Other reviewers are correct in stating that verb usage is quite good, while actual vocabulary is pretty low.
Obviously, I'm in the minority with regards to my rating, so I will cut to the chase about what I didn't like about it: 1) hearing the two students make mistakes repeatedly. I don't need to hear someone mispronounce a word repeatedly - I would prefer to hear the word pronounced properly. Hearing someone else flub a term repeatedly is an irritation. 2) the loose structure - I prefer a more organized approach than a conversational one.
I am now trying out Pimsleur and finding that much more up my alley, because the approach is very organized, pronunciation is taught (longer words are broken into their phonetic components so you learn how to pronounce each syllable), and you don't hear another student repeatedly make errors - trust me, you don't need to hear someone else's mistakes to learn how to do it right.
Rating:
Summary: Fast Start
Review: I bought the Michel Thomas 8 CD set not knowing what to expect. Everything I read said that it was a unique learning experience. I must confess that I have never tried to learn a language with a cd or cassette before so I do not have anything to compare my learning to, but after the first day I was able to say a dozen complete sentences that are useful in everyday conversation. In fact, I only listened to the first three tracks of eleven on the first cd! Like I stated earlier, I have no experience with other language learning audio aids, but from what I have heard about the other standard learning methods there would be no way that I could formulate complete sentences after only one day of practice. The learning method is truly unique and it does work. I cannot wait to see (and hear) how I am doing a month from now!
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